South Korea Eyes Easing Tough No-Fly Zone Rules

A Korean Air Lines Co. passenger aircraft approaches to land at Incheon International Airport in Incheon, South Korea.

Bloomberg News

Struggling with rising fuel prices and lackluster passenger traffic, South Korea’s airlines have a major obstacle that prevents them from cutting costs: Too many no-fly zones over the domestic skies.

Still technically at war with the North since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, more than half of South Korea’s skies are off limits or restricted areas, forcing civilian airplanes to find alternative routes that consume more fuel than is rightly needed.

“Through consultations with the Defense Ministry, we’re opening up restricted areas temporarily on a case by case basis when there are no military operations under way because of bad weather or for other reasons,” said Ki Young-jae, an official at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. “That will help improve flight safety by easing congestion. Civilian airlines can also cut costs by taking shortcuts.”

Some 215,000 square kilometers of airspace, or 50.5% of South Korea’s fly zones, are controlled by the military for security reasons. Civilian flights over those areas are banned except when they get approval from the ministry’s air traffic center.

According to ministry data, Korean Air Lines Co. and more than a dozen other local and foreign carriers flew a total of 277,512 planes over the Korean skies and some 20% of them were allowed to pass through the restricted areas in the first half of the year. That helped the carriers save 1,131 flight hours and cut fuel costs by 5.1 billion won ($5 million).

The ministry expects civilian carriers to cut costs by as much as 10 billion won this year.
Air Busan Co., a budget carrier unit of Asiana Airlines Inc., most frequently flew over restricted areas with permission with 26.5% of its total flights in the first six months of 2014, followed by Korean Air at 19.1% and Asiana at 16.8%.

“We hope to use more of these types of economical routes if possible. We’re asking the ministry and other related authorities to expand the range of permissible areas,” said a Korean Air spokesman.

Back in 2004, the government established nine direct flight routes in the no-fly zones that could be used by civilian planes and raised the number of such routes to 11 in 2005 and to 13 in 2012.

“We’re going to expand such areas further unless it hurts our national security,” said Park Soon-gun, an official at the air traffic center. “It’s also more environmentally friendly because a shorter flight means planes emit less carbon dioxide.”